Whine & Cheese

Unaccustomed Earth (#19)

I am thinking W&C should probably renamed "Occasional Book Blog" because that is pretty much what it has morphed into.  I would feel a bit bad about this, but I think most of my "regulars" are getting their fill of me through other venues. 

The good news/bad new is that Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri brings up to what I read in... wait for it... July!   There are a couple bigger/longer reads between then and now, so I am only 4 books behind and on my 5th one, that will be finished some time this week.  

Lahiri's latest (now available in paperback) is a collection of 5 short stories plus what pretty much amounts to a novella (3 linked short stories).  I have stated before that I am not a huge fan of the short-story genre, but I am starting to come around... maybe just due to what seems to be society's decreasing attention span.  Heck, I was not even a huge fan of Lahiri's literary debut of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, which won the Pulitzer!  Though I should perhaps say not an "orgasmic" fan of it, as I had read her first full-length novel, The Namesake, before Interpreter and loved that so much it was one of my top books of 2007.  It's always hard not to compare one book vs another by the same author and in this case I just preferred Namesake. 

But that may not matter much as the news here is that I think Unaccustomed Earth is Lahiri's best work yet... and she is one of those rare authors who I have read their entire body of work, easy enough to do when those two abovementioned books are it!  I was instantly mesmerized by the very first story and it only cemented my belief the Lahiri is one of the best writers out their today. 

Having read her many stories and her one novel to date, my one small quibble is the recurrence in the character types (well-educated Bengalis living in the Ivy Leagues) and themes (infidelity, struggles with cultural identity), but again it's to Lahiri's credit that she never makes it seem repetitive.  I know that "recur/not repetitive" sounds contradictory, but as a white male who has read maybe a dozen pieces of Indian oriented lit these recurrences it just stands out more... obviously I have exponetially more books about well-educated white folk who struggle with monogamy issues that aren't the same story either!  So while it may cultural aspects of Lahiri's books might be new or different to me what she is really doing is beautifully capturing the human experience of longing for love and happiness, that is certainly not exclusive to gender or race.

This is certainly one of my favorites of the year and if you haven't read Lahiri I would encourage you to give her a try, though I would almost want you to "go in order" (Intepreter, Namesake, Unaccustomed) as I think she is really evolving as a writer (though Interpreter is certainly a very high quality starting point) and that is a interesting journey as well.

Express Lane: Issue 68

Wildfires in Southern California - The Big Picture - I knew it was only a matter of time before TBP did a "there are no superlatives" set of pictures from these horrific fires. (9/2/09)

Agassi Autobiography To Be Released in November - Hope the book is an interesting as his life/career, but just never know how honest they're going to be... have yet to read a really "great" tennis memoir. (8/25/09)

Obama's Book Club: Beach Read Edition - If POTUS can get through 5 books during a week in Martha's Vineyard, I'll be very impressed! Click the link to check out the titles. (8/24/09)

Amazing Race 15: Cast Revealed

I almost wasn't going to do this, but since work is a bit slow it seemed just wrong not to continue this W&C tradition.  Here's the group pic, followed by the teams (ages in parentheses) and relationship... 

Back Row (left to right)
Cheyne & Meghan (23/23) - dating
Garrett & Jessica (28/27) - dating on and off
Zev & Justin (26/30) - friends, Zev has Asperger's Syndrome
Herbert & Nathaniel (32/28) - Harlem Globetrotters

Middle Row (left to right)
Ericka & Brian (27/27) - married, first TAR interracial couple
Daniel & Samuel (21/23) - brothers, both gay
Gary & Matt (47/22) - father/son
Lance & Keri (41/33) - engaged

Front Row (left to right)
Maria & Tiffany (26/25) - professional poker players
Eric & Lisa (41/43) - married yoga teachers
Ronald & Marcy (59/60) - dating
Canaan & Mika (26/22) - newly dating

The new season kicks off on Sunday, September 27th with a two-hour episode (first time?).... rumor has it one team will be eliminated immediately and a new "Switchback" will have teams revisiting some of the toughest challenges in TAR history.

Fall TV 2009

I think another W&C tradition is to share what shows we'll be watching for the upcoming TV season.  I thought things looked pretty under control again this year, but taking a look back to last year's post it does look like there is a tad more... hmm!?!   Plan on giving some new shows a try-out, but you just never know whether we or the network will stick with them.

Again, this is only looking at the 4 major networks ... which again is somewhat misleading, since cable is providing a lot of the good stuff these days.  If you want to take a look at the Fall TV grid, here's a link to a good one from Futon Critic.  Ok, here we go:

Monday: Dancing With The Stars, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory
No changes here, though CBS is kicking off its Monday comedy block with HIMYM and ending it with BBT, so that's a bit of a change.  

Tuesday: DWTS Results
This slim night is the same as last year.

Wednesday: New Adventures of Old Christine, Glee, Modern Family, Cougar Town
With the exception of Old Christine, this is all new stuff.  Of course, I am with the masses that have already fallen in love with Glee just based on that one episode that aired in May + all those great previews.  The last two are ABC sitcoms that have got me curious just based on their commercials.  Cougar Town (with Courtney Cox (Arquette)) as a 40-something dating younger men seems to have the most awful title ever, but I have to give it a try since it comes from Scrubs' creator Bill Lawrence.

Thursday: SNL Weekend Update, Parks & Recreation, The Office, Community, 30 Rock
Still sticking with the NBC not necessarily Must-See Thursday night comedy block... this year it's a bit different with the cancellations of Earl and Kath & Kim... and newcomer Community (again a bit won over by the commercials) will eventually move to the start of the night when 30 Rock comes back in October (not sure why 30R never seems to premiere w/ the rest of the shows)... and yes, 30 Rock finally won me over last season.

Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Nothing
No changes here... the networks don't even try on Saturdays and Fridays seem to be pretty special interest (i.e. NBC's supernatural block)... just not my special interest

Sunday: The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters
Again, the same as last year... though at the end of last season, I was pretty confident that I was ditching the Housewives... then they announced Drea de Matteo (Adrianna from The Sopranos) was being added to the cast, so it's back on the schedule... but it's definitely on probation!  I have to remind myself that de Matteo wasn't exactly the savior to Matt LeBlanc's Joey.

So that's 11 hours... which doesn't seem all too bad/crazy... about 1.5 hours a night if you average it out the entire week.  Again, that doesn't include cable stuff... for instance, I plan on giving HBO's Curb Your Enthusiam a try this season thanks to the Seinfeld reunion storyline... and Showtime's Californication returns as well, so there's another hour right there!  Also, it is relatively short-lived as come January stuff like Idol and Lost return... and the Scrubs reboot is still floating out there. 

Getting A Grip (#18)

Wow, I think this the longest I haven't posted anything on the blog... but keeping busy on those other social sites and still working on losing weight (less than a pound to go to reach the 10 lbs lost!) and watching tennis....

So it only seems appropriate that I finally get around to this book (read in June!)... Getting A Grip by Monica Seles... which is a lot about tennis and weight loss! 

I think even most non-tennis fans probably know at least something about Monica Seles, even if it is not for her amazing success on the courts.  If not, Seles was the victim in what I think is one of the most horrific events in sports history when, at age 20 and at the height of her career, she was stabbed in the back in Germany by a crazed fan who wanted Seles' main rival, Steffi Graf, to return to the #1 ranking.  Thanks to a whole lot of luck, the stabbing did not cause serious injury (narrowly missing major muscles) it took over 2 years for Seles to return to tennis and while she had some great results she only managed to add 1 more Grand Slam title to the 8 she racked up between May 1990 to January 1993.

The stabbing ended up causing more psychological harm and coupled with the death of her beloved father, Seles began to find comfort in food with her weight gain that was quite evident upon her return to tennis and hampering the comeback (though it's all relative, 95% of tennis players would have loved to have had her post-comeback results).

Given this story, it is hard not to be inspired by Seles' story.  I'll admit to being a huge Seles fan and in fact one of my first forays onto the Internet was creating a stats page tracking her career (win-loss stats, head-to-head results, etc.).  And as you can see by the book cover, Seles did win her battle with food.

Just in her mid-30s now, this is Seles' second memoir!  I read the first one I believe was published around the comeback, chronicling her early years through the stabbing and her comeback.  This one covers much of the same territory though extends through her recent (and quite brief) appearance on Dancing With The Stars (I was not surprised by her short stay, Seles was never a graceful athlete - so my expectations were low for her ballroom dancing).   And obviously, this one is a lot about her eating problems and weight gain which she was likely quite deep in denial about at the time of that first book.

All this said, I really can't recommend this book to a non-tennis fan... and even more so, someone who doesn't hold at least some affection for Seles.  Likewise, there is not a whole lot to cull from it about weight loss as this isn't an advice book either... much of the time you just have to marvel about how Seles' double life, competing vs. world-class athletes but fueling her own body so badly. 

The book really doesn't offer any juicy inside stuff about the tennis tour and the descriptions of tennis matches or tournaments tend to be quite mechanical (this happened, then this, then I played Player X and I won)... and some stuff you would like to hear about doesn't get much attention.  For example, she talks about playing for the U.S. Fed Cup team and in "oh, by the way" fashion notes how she became a U.S. citizen a few years prior to that... it would have been interesting to hear why it was important to her to get citizenship and some of the stuff involved in doing that. 

This is pretty typical of the tennis (auto)biography as I have yet to read a really good/great one. Though that isn't stopping me for trying again.  I am contemplating Serena Williams' just released memoir for our upcoming vacation... and the biggie, Andre Agassi's book is due in November.